Press Releases

9/22/2017

BATON ROUGE, LA – Attorney General Jeff Landry is continuing his pledge
to fight public corruption. Today, his office arrested a Pointe Coupee employee
accused of defrauding the people of Louisiana.

“Louisiana deserves professionals who work to make our
state better, not who violate the public’s trust,” said General Landry. “My
office will continue to investigate, apprehend, and prosecute officials who
break the law.”

Willie Woods, 28 of New Roads, was arrested and charged
with Felony Theft (over $5,000 but less than $25,000), Malfeasance in Office,
and Computer Fraud. He was arrested by the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation
(LBI) following a criminal investigation into a possible internal theft of City
of New Roads’ funds.

Woods, the Accounts Clerk for the City of New Roads,
allegedly participated in a six-month scheme where he stole over $6,000 from
the collection of traffic tickets and $2,550 from the collection of rental fees
and deposits for the Civic Center. He also allegedly used the public computer
to adjust the payment transactions by voiding them. Though payments were marked
as “paid,” no money was collected, creating suspicion that Woods would mark the
fees as paid, void the transactions to the city, and keep the money.

This arrest continues General Landry’s commitment to
ruling out public corruption in Louisiana. General Landry has arrested over 20
public officials on corruption charges in his administration's first 20 months,
and his office is leading the prosecutions of many of them.

“We will not rest in our pursuit of corrupt officials
appointed or elected,” said General Landry. ”Our Department of Justice
will continue to do all we can to ensure public officials act in a manner that
is lawful and admirable.”